


Immovable Center

by ARPoet7, GillianGrissom



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Mass Effect 3, Mass Effect 3: Leviathan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-02
Updated: 2013-04-02
Packaged: 2017-12-07 06:05:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/745142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ARPoet7/pseuds/ARPoet7, https://archiveofourown.org/users/GillianGrissom/pseuds/GillianGrissom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set during the Leviathan DLC. Kaidan experiences an amp overheat and migraine on the battlefield, which leads to him blacking out and Shepard and Garrus having to get them out of a sticky situation. Shepard starts having flashbacks to Mars and worries about Kaidan's well-being. Fluff then ensues back at Shepard's cabin. (Already established Mshenko relationship, so set after the lunch date on the Citadel)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Immovable Center

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is my first attempt at *ever* writing fanfiction, so this was an interesting experiment for me. I'm incredibly excited to have written this and to have co-authored it with the lovely GillianGrissom (who is a fanfiction veteran thank you for being patient with the fanfiction virgin). We will hopefully have much more Mass Effect related fanfiction coming out sooner, but we just hope that everyone enjoys our first work that we wrote together. I do have to say that I *loved* writing protective Shep--it was so interesting to see on a more personal level. Please leave comments and feedback below if you enjoyed the story. ^_^ Thanks everyone! You're amazing!

“Out of the frying pan and into the fire,” Kaidan mused to himself as he picked off several Husks that came shambling his way.

“Story of our lives,” Shepard chimed in with his half-cocked grin that normally would have made the Major weak at the knees if it hadn’t been for the Husk nearly at arms-length, threatening to maul his face off.

A splash of blue spilled over Kaidan’s body as a surge of biotic energy sent the emaciated body hurdling through the air and over the metallic ledge of the Mahavid mines railing.

“Two shots on the Ravager,” Garrus called out.

“Just shoot the damn thing, Garrus! You don’t need to ask it to ‘please die,’ once you’ve shot it,” Shepard replied. Garrus’ mandibles flexed into a grin as he raised his rifle from a crouched position and fired a single shot that sent the Ravager’s sac exploding in a plume of viscous fluid.

“Great, Garrus. Now we have to deal with those damn Swarmers. I hate those scuttling little bastards,” Kaidan said, trying to discreetly bring a hand to rub the side of his temples as pain throbbed behind his eyes.

The Commander quickly glanced in Kaidan’s direction noting the action, and also noting that the Major chose to try and hide the action. Shepard didn’t push the subject, knowing full-well what it meant: an oncoming migraine. In all this time, if there was one thing that Shepard had learned about Kaidan, it was that he was just as—if not _more_ stubborn than himself. Shepard grinned slightly and pondered the thought, ‘ _is that a turn-on,’_ before biotically punching a marauder in the mandible and snapping its neck with a chuckle. 

“Kaidan, I have to admit, when you stomp on Swarmers, it’s like watching Vega do a Mexican hat dance. I kinda love seeing it,” Garrus replied with a smirk—or at least what looked like a smirk to Kaidan.

Shepard raised an eyebrow, “How do you even know what a Mexican hat dance is, Garrus? Or what it looks like?”

“Cortez, a bottle of dextro-tequila, and the Extranet,” Garrus replied while firing the second round that sent the Ravager collapsing to the ground. “Hah! I love this rifle!”

“Garrus, remind me to use you as a Turian-shield the next time a Ravager is firing at me,” Kaidan said, pursing his lips and stomping on the first of many Swarmers to come crawling his way.

“Now I get why Joker calls you Major Crankypants behind your back sometimes,” said Garrus with a chuckle.

“Yeah, well, Joker also said that you use the stick up your ass to beat other people to death, so call it even,” Shepard interjected.

Shepard moved past Garrus and shot him a disapproving look while pointing at his temples and mouthed the word “migraine.”         Garrus returned the look with a blank stare and mouthed the word “joke,” but Shepard continued to give that Commander Shepard glare that practically said, “bad Garrus!” Garrus tossed his hands up silently in defeat and went back to his rifle.

Kaidan was bent over his covered position, completely oblivious to the silent conversation happening around him, while flinging biotics at oncoming Swarmers. Shepard came up behind Kaidan, placing a gentle hand on the small of his back. Kaidan turned slightly after hurling one more stream of biotic energy. “Shepard, I have a secret to tell you. I think I have a phobia of spiders.”

Shepard gave a throaty chuckle. “Yeah, Kaidan, it’s not so much of a secret. I pretty much figured it out when you nearly tried to set my omni-tool on fire when I suggested buying a pet tarantula from the Extranet.”

Kaidan grimaced, “I didn’t want it to eat your space hamster. It’s a legit worry, Shepard.”

“I agree, Shepard,” Garrus added. “The Normandy is enough of a safari tour as it is. And please, don’t get a bird or anything that flies. I’m not sure that my gentle Turian sensibilities could handle it right now…”

“Duly noted,” Shepard nodded with a slight frown. ‘ _It’s my damn cabin,’_ he thought petulantly. Kaidan was now rubbing his temples at a more frequent rate and doing very little to hide the fact at this point as he clenched his eyes shut and sucked in a pained breath between his teeth. “Everything alright, Major?”

Kaidan opened his eyes to find a concerned Shepard fixing those ‘ _damn gorgeous_ ’ sapphire eyes on him. “Everything’s good, Commander.” Kaidan nodded while trying to muster a sincere smile.

“Doesn’t look like it, Kaidan,” Garrus said. “The smile’s less effective when you’re still rubbing your head.”

Kaidan hadn’t noticed the action, but stopped immediately when Garrus brought it to his attention. “Just a slight amp over-heat. It’s nothing I haven’t dealt with before. Don’t worry about me.”

Shepard closed the space between himself and Kaidan even further. His hand that sat on the small of Kaidan’s back slightly applied more pressure that was meant to indicate the sincerity of the question. “You sure?” Shepard’s voice was stern, serious, and bordering on protective as his blue eyes searched Kaidan’s brown for the truth.

Kaidan didn’t get the chance to reassure Shepard again, not that it would have helped.  Shepard was as good at predicting when Kaidan was hiding a migraine as Garrus was at calibrating that damned Thanix cannon. And right now, Kaidan was doing a piss-poor job of hiding his migraine. As he opened his mouth to tell Shepard he'd be fine, something that used to be an Asari screamed from the other end of the causeway, a sound that the most terrifying beast Tuchanka had ever produced couldn’t hope to imitate.

“Agh, that sound,” the Major yelped. Kaidan’s hands shot immediately up to the sides of his head, groping at his ears as he tried to deafen the awful sound. An aura of blue erupted around Kaidan as his biotics flared in reaction to the screech. In a fusion of lightheadedness and the pain from the migraine, the biotic felt his body shiver and sway as his eyes darkened, and Kaidan hit Shepard's arms before he could hit the floor.  Garrus let out a stream of Turian curses in-between yelling for Cortez across the coms and taking rapid-fire shots at the Banshee.  The shuttle wouldn't be able to land on the narrow causeway, but the closer it was, the faster they could get Kaidan out of there. 

Garrus worked his way to Kaidan as Shepard began to glow with the rage that never failed to boil over whenever Kaidan was hurt on the battlefield, causing his biotics to spiral of control.  Shepard tucked Kaidan closer to the ledge he was using for shelter and glanced at Garrus, his eyes an even brighter blue against the glare.

"Go," Garrus said, sliding steadily closer and hitting the closest husk square in the forehead as it approached. "I've got him." 

Shepard looked at him as if to say ' _You'd better protect him_ ' and ' _he'd better be okay_ ' and a little bit of ' _I don't know what I'll do if he isn't_ ' that Garrus pretended he didn't see and then Shepard quite simply wasn't there anymore, having biotically charged across the battlefield.  Garrus hunkered down next to the unconscious human, continuing to snipe Husks and Mauraders.

' _Good thing Kaidan can't see this, what with the being unconscious_. _He’d never miss an opportunity to lecture Shepard on being reckless,_ ' he thought when he glanced at Shepard and the proverbial pulp that humans would say the Banshee was being beaten into.  He couldn't risk more than a glance, just enough to be sure Shepard was handling it, but the next chance he had to look up the Banshee was little more than paste spread across the causeway and Shepard's knuckles and the other Reapers were either dead or fled.

"Commander,” Cortez said through the coms as the shuttle came over the edge of the causeway and the door slid open.  Garrus lifted Kaidan and carried him on board, followed by a Shepard that couldn't take his eyes off Kaidan's limp form, as Cortez continued.  "Chakwas has the med bay ready and waiting."

The flight back to the Normandy was tense and silent, Shepard keeping constant tabs of Kaidan's vitals while Garrus and Cortez sat in the pilot and co-pilot seats, not looking at each other.  ' _Kaidan will be fine_ ,' they were both thinking, because he would, and Shepard would make the things responsible for Kaidan's injuries wish they had stayed in the empty blackness of space before the war was over.  They made it back to the Normandy in record time, which made Garrus wonder if Joker, EDI, and Cortez had arranged it. Maybe it wasn't the very best thing they could have done to the Normandy, because that whine was _not_ normal, but if it meant getting Kaidan conscious faster and Shepard calm, it was worth it.  Chakwas met them at the cargo bay with a med bag and a stretcher. She wheeled Kaidan to the infirmary and set about hooking him up to some sort of brain wave scanner.

"He's fine, Commander," she told Shepard, who clearly wasn't listening, though everyone else sighed in relief.  Liara stood across the bed from Shepard, called his name, met his eyes, and dragged them back up from Kaidan.  Chakwas put her hand on his shoulder.  "He's fine," she repeated when he looked over at her.  "He needs to sleep for a while. It appears to have been caused by a mixture of an overheated amp, dehydration, and an overload to surrounding stimuli."  She unhooked the scanner, moving gracefully around Shepard, who had gone back to staring.  Liara touched him, a hand on his arm.

Liara could see that Shepard’s mind had drifted away into his own nebula of worry and regret. A place covered in drifting Mars storms, the metallic sheen of Dr. Eva Core’s suffocating hands clenched around Kaidan’s throat, and the heat of a crashed Cerberus shuttle eclipsing the whole scene. Shepard had felt his skin twitch beneath Liara’s touch—her hand against his armored forearm sent shivers shooting like bullets through his body. It felt like pulling that trigger back on Mars again. Reacting to the chaos around him, muscle memory resisting the stasis of shock as he had looked at Kaidan’s lifeless form. On Mars, in the span of fifteen seconds, Shepard’s mind had given way to a million thoughts and one regret: the missed opportunity with the man he had loved for so long.

"He'd probably be more comfortable in bed," Liara said at last, interrupting his thoughts, and Shepard scooped up a still-armored Kaidan.

Garrus smiled slightly at the sight. "Isn’t that how humans carry off their brides on their wedding day?"  Garrus asked Tali, who had walked up to stand beside him.  Tali just looked at him, but he could tell she was smiling. Shepard shot Garrus a look that was half ‘ _what are you talking about?_ ’ and half ‘ _as soon as he wakes up I will get you for that.’_

Tali chuckled. “Maybe one day they will actually get married and _be_ brides.”

"I think they’d be called ‘grooms’ if they’re men, Tali,” Garrus corrected.

 “I know what I said, Mr. Vakarian.” Garrus could tell that beneath the haze of her enviro-suit helmet, she was grinning. “And just think, one day you can be Shepard’s maid of honor, and I may even catch the bouquet!”

 Garrus raised his hand and placed it on Tali’s shoulder. “You know, Tali, some days I worry about you. And trust me; you don’t want to see _this_ Turian in a dress.”

\----

Kaidan’s eyes were still shut, but he felt the wrinkles of bed sheets surrounding him. He took a deep breath, not wanting to open his eyes at the risk of still being sensitive to the light. He was back in Shepard’s cabin—in Shepard’s bed. He didn’t need to open his eyes to know that. The last thing Kaidan had remembered was the wail of a Banshee as it had appeared and warped across the causeway of the mines. He remembered trying to stop the sound from ringing so loudly in his head, but as he tried to cover his ears, his vision had faded out and the last thing he saw was Shepard catching him. As he recalled the image, the biotic felt heat pool into his face. Fainting on the battlefield? It made Kaidan feel a little bit like a damsel in distress. Garrus and Vega would never let him live this one down. But Kaidan was already mentally kicking himself for frying his amp and then still trying to use biotics on the field.

Kaidan slowly blinked his eyes open and allowed the distortion of colors to flood his vision. When he didn’t recoil back in pain, Kaidan assumed it was safe to survey his surroundings. He realized that he had been stripped down to his regulation briefs and tucked into bed. The blue lights of Shepard’s aquarium swam across the cabin and painted his nearly naked body in their glow. There was a slight sound at the foot of the bed where Shepard’s desk was, and Kaidan shifted on the pillows to see Shepard propped up in his desk chair with a datapad in hand. Shepard had stripped down too—armor gone, doubts subdued—wearing nothing but his N7 hoodie, his briefs, and a quiet smile.

“Hey,” Shepard said, as if the one word meant everything he needed it to. And maybe, in some ways it did.

“Hi, John,” Kaidan replied with a yawn and a sleep-laced chuckle. “Were you watching me sleep?”

“Among other things,” Shepard answered as he put down the datapad and moved toward the bed.

Kaidan raised an eyebrow with a smirk. “Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah, did some thinking too.” Shepard drew up the covers and slid into the sheets, pulling the man that he loved close to him—their bodies linking together in perfect unison. “Feeling better?”

Kaidan nodded. “Aside from injured pride and a bad case of dry-mouth, I feel fine now.”

Shepard gave a small huff of a laugh. “Not sure that I can help you with the injured pride, but—” he moved his arm that he had been situated under Kaidan’s head to point at the nightstand.

Kaidan turned to look at the nightstand where three full glasses of water sat. “You’re always prepared, John.”

Shepard smirked. “That’s my job—being prepared for anything. But it’s mostly because I didn’t want to get out of bed once I crawled in.”

“Charming.”

“It’s called foresight, babe.” Shepard tapped his temple to accentuate the smartass retort.

“Uh-huh.” Kaidan smiled and placed a small kiss on John’s lips.

John opened his mouth slightly, allowing a breath to pass between the kiss. His hand traveled down to the small of Kaidan’s back—a favorite place of his. Sometimes he felt like his hand was _meant_ to be permanently glued to spot just above Kaidan’s ass. With a gentle pressure, he encouraged Kaidan to scoot closer into his arms as the kiss gradually became messier and less coordinated. Kaidan was happy to oblige, entwining one leg between John’s thighs and lacing his arms around the other man’s torso.  It was almost unavoidable at this point—feeling like teenagers as that bubbling heat in the lower part of their stomachs boiled over in a flash of teeth and tongue. Stubble against stubble as they both traveled the other person’s lips, face, and neck.

Kaidan eventually pulled back with a grin and whiskey eyes. “Okay—” he began, but his lips were immediately chased down with John’s. He was forced to placate the other man with a series of kisses before being allowed to continue. “Are you going to tell me what you were thinking about while I was out like a coma patient?” Kaidan paused, searching John’s eyes for some hint. “John, you may be able to tell when I’m lying to you, but I know your ‘ _I’m Commander Shepard, and I’m going to hide what’s really bothering me_ smile.’”

“I have a smile for that?”

“You use it about eight-five percent of the time, so yeah, you do.”

“What about the other fifteen percent of the time? What does that smile say?”

“’ _I should go. Because I’m hungry.’”_ Shepard gave Kaidan a smile that was punctuated with a kiss. “See, there it is!”

“Sorry, Kaidan, but beating a Banshee to death with my bare fists is hard work. It makes a man hungry.”

Kaidan glowered. “John, you didn’t…”

“Call it over-protective instinct,” John replied sheepishly.

"I call it being reckless.”

 “Garrus said you’d say that.”

 Kaidan huffed. “Well, if everyone did things the way you and Garrus did them, we’d be driving a Mako as a civilian vehicle, and we would have all died by either blowing ourselves up or crashing, _Commander._ ”

 “Man’s gotta have dreams, Major.”

 “Why do your dreams always have to involve so many explosions?” Kaidan set his face in the crook of John’s neck and kissed the thrumming pulse below his jaw. Kaidan took in the aroma of both John’s N7 hoodie and the smell of his bare skin. As strange as it was, the smell of sweat, gun oil, blood, and a faint musky cologne was addictive and intoxicating. And despite the cloth beneath his fingers, Kaidan could feel every freckle, every scar, and every sinew that made up the man beneath him. All of these things about John: his protective nature, the way he still smelled like gunfire no matter how many showers he took, his scars, his goofy “I’m hungry smile,” his _one_ copy of Fornax, his need to punch every nearest Banshee square in the boob, and even his cybernetic implants—that kept the man that he loved, alive—were all facets of the man; but no matter how hard he tried, Kaidan could never quite figure out what “made” John, Commander Shepard. “So…”

John sighed, kissing the top of Kaidan’s head, setting a few hairs out of their perfect place. John ran his fingers in small circles across Kaidan’s back, watching the other man’s body rise and fall with his own breaths while the other man lay curled up comfortably in the crook of his neck—each breath tickling his pulse. John was at a loss for words. At times, he felt like he was drifting through dark space—some place void of direction. No up, no down, and no matter how long and how hard he struggled against the forces around him, he was just floating in a place of perpetual negation. But Kaidan had changed all of that for him. As minute as their problems and concerns were in comparison to the rest of the galaxy’s right now, Kaidan gave John direction and focus. Kaidan was like the fringe of some far off galaxy coloring the horizon that John could see from dark space, and a small hope was better than none.

Dr. Chakwas had told Shepard once that he was “their immovable center. A place for a person to stop and catch their breath.” While Shepard had never really been one for poetics, he had liked the sound of it at the time—but it could have just been all the Serrice Ice Brandy talking. But now, in the middle of an all-out galactic war, Shepard needed his own immovable center; and as afraid as he was to admit it to himself, with Kaidan breathing softly into his neck and his arms wrapped around him like he was afraid Shepard was going to float away—Shepard was the happiest he had ever been. And twice now, Shepard felt like he had almost failed Kaidan, and let that hope, that happiness and promise of a future slip away.

John must have been scowling or breathing heavily, because Kaidan had leaned up on his elbows, and was searching John’s face with a concerned stare. Kaidan gently grabbed John’s chin with his thumb and forefinger to gain the other man’s attention. “Hey,” he said at last. There was that word again. That one word that somehow seemed to say everything between them like an entire conversation had happened in a single breath.

Shepard found himself getting lost in his thoughts more and more lately. “Hey,” he replied with a smile. A different smile—one that was reserved for Kaidan, and Kaidan alone. A smile that said, _‘I’m, John Shepard. I love you, and I’m okay. I promise.’_

Kaidan mirrored the smile with his own and kissed John. He understood and didn’t need to know anything more than what was right in front of him. “You know, I’m not going anywhere, right, John?”

John nodded, smoothing his fingers through greying Kaidan’s hair. “Me either.”

"I was never worried,” Kaidan replied. “But is getting you to answer questions always going to be this difficult? ‘Cause when I ask you to marry me one day, I’m gonna need a simple ‘yes or no.’”

John erupted into laughter that caused the bed to shudder. “My immovable center.”

“Hmm?”

“Don’t worry about it, Kaidan.” John paused as a thin smile slid across his face and his eyes narrowed. “Now, why don’t we cut the chit-chat and find something better to do?”

Kaidan crawled out from between John’s limbs with glazed eyes, husky voice, and honey-thick movements while unzipping the other man’s N7 hoodie, revealing his toned muscles beneath, and sliding eager hands up his chest to remove the item. “Aye, aye, Commander…”

 


End file.
